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This is the first Rock ‘n Roll Keltner List, and I wrote the questions to closely model the standard formula. Here’s Mac’s standard preamble to Keltner lists: The Keltner List was developed by Bill James as a device to evaluate a player’s Hall of Fame candidacy. In The Politics of Glory James says that it is probably his favorite tool to do that. (You can read about the background in that book, or do a Google search, for further information.)

To be eligible for induction as an artist (as a performer, composer, or musician) into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the artist must have released a record, in the generally accepted sense of that phrase, at least 25 years prior to the year of induction; and have demonstrated unquestionable musical excellence.

We shall consider factors such as an artist’s musical influence on other artists, length and depth of career and the body of work, innovation and superiority in style and technique, but musical excellence shall be the essential qualification of induction.

So let’s run it for Devo…

Were they ever regarded as the best band in the country? Did anybody, while they were active, ever suggest that they were the best band in the country?

No.

Were they the most popular band in America?

Not at all. Other than one fluke hit, “Whip It,” they were a cult band, wearing distinctive hard plastic “energy dome” hats, creating a mythology around a character named “Booji Boy” (pronounced “boogie”) and referring to their devoted fans as “spuds.”

Were they the best band in their genre?

No. They may have been in the top five American “new wave bands,” at least in the year 1980, depending on how you define it. I think my pick for best in genre is probably Talking Heads.

Did they continue to have hits after passing their prime?

No. Their 2010 album Something for Everybody marked the fifth decade in which they have released music (1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s), but nothing on that album would remotely approach being called a “hit.” They really only have one hit by conventional definition, “Whip It,” which peaked at number 14 in the US.

Are they the very best band in history who is not in the Hall of Fame?

No. Kraftwerk was nominated but denied this year, and they’re one of the most influential bands of all time.

Are most artists who had comparable careers in the Hall of Fame?

Generally not. Devo was sort of the Gene Tenace of bands: beloved of hobbyists who adore underappreciated things from the 1970’s, but they had a relatively short peak, overshadowed both at the time and in retrospect by Hall of Fame contemporaries — in Tenace’s case, that would have been his teammate Reggie Jackson, and in Devo’s case, that would have been Hall of Fame punk/new wave bands like Blondie and the Police.

Are they the best band in their genre who is not in the Hall of Fame

Probably not, but they’re not that far from the top of the list. Among new wave bands of the 1970s and 1980s, I would put XTC and Roxy Music in before Devo. However, I’d put Devo in before Oingo Boingo, a band to which they were often compared. (Then again, that’s like saying I’d put Javy Lopez in before Lance Parrish. Neither’s getting in.)

It is worth noting that despite the fact that the Hall of Fame is in Ohio, many of Ohio’s greatest artists are poorly represented in the Hall. Along with Devo, The Dead Boys, Pere Ubu, and the Raspberries are all on the outside looking in. I don’t think anyone’s banging down the door for Eric Carmen, and the Dead Boys imploded after two albums, but I think there’s a significant case to be made for Pere Ubu. The Hall of Fame may be in Ohio but most of the voters ain’t, and it may well be that there’s a blind spot that ignores the museum’s back yard.

(Akron native Chrissie Hynde is in the Hall with her band The Pretenders — but they’re really a British punk band. And though the O’Jays were largely from Canton and they received their name in Cleveland, they were known as a Philly Soul band.)

How many great albums did they have?

This is one of the more damning arguments against Devo. They had exactly two great albums, their debut Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, and their third album, New TraditionalistsFreedom of Choice, which was also their biggest seller because that’s the one that had “Whip It.” They had good songs scattered elsewhere — many of them on soundtracks, including “Huboon Stomp” from South Park: Chef Aid — and some of the pre-album home recordings are good too (released by Rykodisc as Hardcore Devo). But the other albums were hit and miss.

How many number one singles did they have? How many top 10 singles did they have?

None. Whip It never cracked the top 10, but it has had a remarkably long life, one of the songs that can instantly be played to evoke the 1980s.

They had other singles, though, and I’ll just go by what Wikipedia marks as the chart positions.

“Be Stiff” (1977), referring to their label Stiff Records, peaked at #71 on the UK singles charts.
Their cover of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” (1977) reached #41 in the UK.
“Jocko Homo” (1978) reached #62 in the UK.
“Girl U Want” (1980) reached #22 in Japan and #57 in the UK.
Their cover of “Working in the Coalmine” (1981) reached #20 in Australia and #43 in the Billboard Hot 100.

What impact did the band have on musical history? Did they introduce any new equipment or style? Did they change popular music in any way?

This is the strongest argument in favor of Devo. Their stripped-down synthesizer-heavy music and edgy satirical lyrics proved very influential, and have kept them more relevant than many of the contemporary bands who outsold them in the ’70s and ’80s. The band members met as art students at Kent State University shortly before members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd and killed four students in 1970, and the band named itself after the belief that the human race was devolving. Their cold, tinny, cheap-sounding synthesizers similarly represented a devolved musical sound, as shown by their aggressively weird song and video “Jocko Homo.” (The title was a play on the notion that homo sapiens had de-evolved into a jock.)

Their “devolved cover” of the Rolling Stones’ classic “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” is probably the best example of this, taking the lyrics but reworking the melody entirely. This version was featured in the movie Casino by Martin Scorsese, a director famous for using rock songs on his soundtracks. Devo repeated the formula with Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced?,” fueling a sinister, paranoid intensity into another classic rock staple.

And they were one of the most influential bands in the art-punk underground that would soon give way to new wave, partly under the tutelage of Brian Eno, the man who produced their first album. Eno produced four albums in 1978, and it is a remarkable set: along with Devo’s debut, he produced Talking Heads’s second album, More Songs About Buildings and Food; the No Wave compilation No New York; and the first album by composer Harold Budd. That was a year after he produced Low and Heroes by David Bowie. Devo could not have been closer to the beating heart of rock and roll than they were in 1978.

Then there’s the Weird Al connection. Yankovic is a noted Devo fan, and covered part of “Jocko Homo” in “Polkas on 45,” from a song from Yankovic’s second album, In 3-D. Then, Yankovic wrote an homage to Devo called “Dare to Be Stupid,” of which Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh said, “I was in shock. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. He sort of re-sculpted that song into something else and, umm … I hate him for it, basically.” It is the title track of Yankovic’s third album.

Yankovic’s video references a number of original Devo music videos, which were influential in their own right in the early days of MTV — none more so than “Whip It,” of course.

Conclusion: This band belongs in the Hall of Very Good, but does not belong in the Hall of Fame.

I love Devo, but they really fit nobody’s definition of a Hall of Fame band. On a commercial level, they never really mattered enough to fit a mainstream definition; on an artistic level, they were generally more concerned with satirizing mainstream culture than seeking enshrinement by it. There are bands in the Hall who never made a single album as good as “Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!”, but every Hall of Fame has a few Rabbit Maranvilles. Devo may not be a Hall of Famer, but they’re a great band.

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155 Responses to “Rock ‘n Roll Keltner List: Devo”

I feel like there should be an additional factor for the Rock and Roll Keltner: Was one of their songs a focal point in a major motion picture? The answer for Devo would be yes. The 2004 film Raising Helen used Whip It on multiple occasions and it was an important element of the story.

If Hamilton goes back to Texas, and/or if J Upton ends up there, would Nelson Cruz work in LF? If he’s too expensive, then David Murphy could be an alternative. I’d also be interested in David DeJesus from the Cubs. Both he and Murphy could be the strong side of a platoon with Reed Johnson, as both hit righties very well.

I think a Weird Al Keltner would be worth doing. I have all his albums through Running With Scissors (I missed Poodle Hat, Straight Outta Lynwood, and there’s probably a new one), but he was my first musical love.

What do you think of the questions for the RnRHOF Keltner? Should I change them?

Hey, it’s the off-season. I can only obsess about the 25th guy on the roster for so long.

BTW, the “New Traditionalists” era did give Devo the opportunity for adopting new headgear. They turned in the flower-pot energy domes & replaced them with rubber Reagan-hair wigs.

Devo also seemed like the only new-wave band that the reactionary rawker types knew. These guys—let’s call them Zep or Rush fans—hated Devo on principle & acted accordingly, usually harassing new-music fans (or worse). “He listenes to Devo!” was an insult to these guys, thus actually proving the theory of “Jocko Homo.” Back then, in some places, there was a small level of bravery that went along with being an “out” Devo fan.

My fondest Devo memory: When I was a senior in high school, I DJ’d a “new wave dance.” People were encouraged to dress the part and one couple showed up in the Men-from-Glad outfit. For some reason, that was considered outrageous. Of course, I played “Whip It” for them.

#10
“Mongoloid” remains my fave, and the first album still wears very well, actually. “Gut Feeling” is another good one from that record.

AAR, I am so glad you took up this task; you created exactly what I had in mind. I think the questions you came up with are spot on. Maybe this will give us something as a fall back whenever the hot stove gets too cool because there is probably a nearly limitless number of good bands/artists that we could all get into discussing after someone does a RnR Keltner on them. Bravo, sir.

Comments on R&R Keltner questions:
-I would support rephrasing the second question so it’s not focused on America. There’s probably consensus that Fela Kuti should be in, for instance, and this would be an easy way to do it. And if it’s not clear, I’m a pop music Anglophile, as some others here must be, I’m sure…
-When you consider the subject at hand, the complete absence of the ‘sportsmanship and character’ criterion was amusing. Maybe something in there about plagiarism (I realize there are huge grey areas here and would argue that, say, Zep shouldn’t be disqualified) or selling out (if appropriate to the act) would work
-Thank you for not making ASGs/MVPs analogous to Grammys or something.

This was a brilliant idea, and was very entertaining to read, Alex. Makes an excellent time-waster during the offseason, especially as we’re about to enter the complete dead zone of the offseason. Just thought I should make my approval known, since this seemed like something you were floating to see if people liked it or not.

25– Wren’s comments are interesting, but that guy’s take is in all likelihood completely wrong. Nothing Wren says suggests that Teheran has gone back to the twisting leg kick. What Wren seems to be saying is that he is employing his new mechanics with the same fluidity and comfort level he had back in 2011.

That could explain Teherans velocity dip, but it could be the Braves just trying to put something out there for trade purposes. Hanson’s velocity drop was due to a shoulder injury and changing from a 2 seam to a 4 seam fastball. At least thats what we were told for the past 2 years.

#27 – I agree. Teheran has probably finally adjusted and reached a comfort level. He’s not thinking about the mechanics as much and is just trusting it now.

@27,29 It can be interpreted both ways but I tend to agree with y’all. Teheran has built the muscle memory not to have to think about the new motion just do it. I guess it will take some video to prove who is correct.

“We wanted him to get back to a more natural delivery where he’s not thinking about his mechanics, and I think he’s accomplished that,” Wren said. “His mechanics were very good. He looked much more natural and like he did two years ago.” AJC

I was thinking about the questions as they relate to the stated critera for RnR HOF induction. It’s a pretty good match, but I wonder if we need another question to more heavily weight musical influence. Did the candidate provide a major influence on other current members of the HOF?

Also, regarding the longevity of career, is there a better way to ask rather than “hits past their prime?”

Also, I think Rush gets in partially on the reputation of technical musical excellence of its individual members. Maybe, this is covered sufficiently in the subjective term “the best,” but maybe it should form the basis of an additional question.

Just some thoughts if we are thinking of altering the questions slightly.

mlbtr
The Braves have already made one notable trade this offseason (Tommy Hanson for Jordan Walden), and Dave O’Brien of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says they are still involved in multiple trade talks (Twitter links). Emilio Bonifacio and Dexter Fowler are believed to be among their targets.

Jerry’s parents come to visit and have their noses buried in their ipads for the entire trip. Kramer gets the idea of buying tons of ipads, bloating them with useless apps for vitamin and meds schedules, attaching a magnifying glass, and flipping them to seniors in Florida for profit. Jerry’s parents won’t front him the money. Even though it’s been years, Elaine can’t get over the iPad name. She constantly makes old/lame jokes about feminine products after initially exclaiming… “there’s an app for THAT!?” George gets caught spending 8 hours a day on Facebook at work, but he convinces his boss that he’s networking and “building the Yankee brand.” They have him run the official Yankees twitter account. He brags to Jerry and Elaine about all of the celebrities and Yankee greats that follow him. Things are going well until he accidentally retweets a joke about Joe DiMaggio that was originally a direct message from Jeter. Hilarity ensues.

Has anyone here ever had a dog partially tear his ACL? This forum has always impressed me with the wide range of knowledge on display, and I could use some insight into what to expect and the best course of action to take. If you could shoot me an email at dlowie using google’s system, I would be much obliged. Thanks!

Yes, my dog tore his ACL and had surgery several years ago. He had his leg up in a sling for a few weeks but it wasn’t so bad. As he has gotten older, he has some trouble getting up and down the steps but otherwise is fine. But it is expensive.

The optimistic way of looking at things is that every single outfielder who isn’t a free agent is a potential trade target. Here’s hoping Wren is keeping it close to the vest and will pull off a big one.

I have paid the $100 the last 3 years to get MLBTV so I could watch Braves games. On the heels of the way the last 3 seasons have ended, if all they manage to get to fill left field is Bonifacio or Fowler I’ll probably just spend it on booze and hookers this year.

What, two playoff appearances and one playoff race that went down to the last day of the season? Fans of 20 other MLB clubs should be so unfortunate. Let’s not get Yankees-level spoiled here.

DOB says Wren’s pursuing Bonifacio and Fowler. I guess out of those two, you’d have to go with Fowler, but maybe he could consider honing in on a good player instead? These Nationals are going to be ridiculously difficult to beat, and starting off with a lousy outfielder is probably not the way to go about it.

I have suffered plenty of insults in my years, but being equated to a spoiled Yankees fan might be the worst. That hurt, Anon21. And let’s have some yankees-level success first before I start worrying about acting spoiled.

I’ll agree that the last 3 seasons as a whole have been nice. Like you said, two postseason trips (One, if you’re like me and still don’t count that play-in circus as a real part of the playoffs) and almost isn’t bad at all. But the way those years ended, now that’s another story. Errors, injuries, errors, poor hitting, errors and bad umpiring (Posey is still out) really ended the seasons with gut-punches. Made it hard to watch the rest of the playoffs except to hate-watch the Cardinals.

Macca-vana? That’s something I’d be willing to listen to. Though he’d probably be better on their Meat Puppets covers than on their death metal vocal stuff like “Aneurysm,” “Endless, Nameless,” and “I Hate Myself and Want to Die.”

I know Fowler has huge home/road splits but what in his skillset would suggest he’d benefit from Coors? Ok, his HRs spiked at Coors but that’s not what he’s known for. Is he really
going to lose his speed, his ability to take a walk, and his gap power?

Coors Field is a very good hitters park full stop. It doesn’t just increase homers, it increases everything. Because of the thin air, it was built with very large dimensions, and fielders have to play deep because of the way the ball carries through the thin air, which means that a lot of singles hitters see their batting average increase. (Remember Neifi Perez?) Breaking balls don’t break as well, so many pitchers are less effective, and the increased number of singles means that they have to throw more pitches, and the thin air has less oxygen, which affects their stamina. Hitting in Coors Field makes a bad hitter look okay, an okay hitter look good, and a good hitter look great. Fowler is not a great hitter.

Well, depending on how successful you think OPS+/WAR is at compensating for that type of thing, a 26 YO 2.5 WAR capable of posting a 117OPS+ and controlled for 3 years is a pretty nice player, even in LF if he’s got decent defense. Not necessarily you give the house for, but still.

I don’t dislike Fowler but I don’t think he’s going to be improving on 2012 going forward. Basically, two things happened last year that contributed to his career year: he hit .300 (aided by a .390 BABIP) and doubled his home run total, aided by a career-high HR/FB ratio. If either of those regress then he’ll look more like 2011 Fowler than 2012 Fowler, as Mike Podhorzer suggests: http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/index.php/dexter-fowler-breaks-out-barely/

He’s a pretty good player. I’d take him. But as a GM once said of Chad Cordero, he isn’t a Cadillac, and I don’t like paying a Cadillac price for him.

If the RNR HOF talk has played out, can I now be the stick in the mud that says that Garth Brooks would be the very embodiment of a RNR HOF?

Halls of Fame work for sports, because all players play by the same rules and toward the same objective. This is obviously not true in music.

All the questions Alex asked regarding Devo, he answered with “Not really, but.. ” I’ll go out on a limb and answer all the same questions “This is irrelevant to Devo.”

They can throw in some old R&B and blues players, and they can throw in some proto-punk acts, but that’s not to celebrate those acts; that’s merely to give themselves some semblance of credibility. The RNR HOF needs the Ramones more than the Ramones need the HOF. And I suspect each feels, or felt in the case of the dead Ramones, about the same way about the other: ambivalent.

I’ll write you a Keltner on Fugazi. 1.) This is Irrelevant to Fugazi. 2.) This is irrelevant to Fugazi. 3.) This is irrelevant to Fugazi…. Etc, etc.

Each band is playing by its own rules and to its own end. I’d go so far as to say that if Black Flag was entered in to a thing called The Rock N Roll Hall of Fame, then their very induction verifies them as undeserving. Their induction into such an establishment would mean that their rules and their ends must have at some point been violated.

If Fugazi is elected, they will decline. If they don’t, then they’ve pretty clearly ceased to be Fugazi in any meaningful way.

When we put Roberto Alomar into the Hall of Fame, we compare him to Ryne Sandberg and say “he stacks up pretty well to Rune Sandberg. If Sandberg, then Alomar. Put him in.”

There’s nothing wrong with being Fleetwood Mac. There’s actually a lot that’s right with being Fleetwood Mac. Celebrate Fleetwood Mac for all that Fleetwood Mac embodies. Do not celebrate Fleetwood Mac because they compare favorably to Heart or the Bee Gees. Heart and the Bee Gees were not the point. Fleetwood Mac was the point. Did they succeed? That’s to be answered by Fleetwood Mac and those who celebrate them. Some silly diorama in Cleveland is irrelevant.

Maybe I misunderstood the discussion, but I thought we were all agreed that what we were talking about is not the actual RNR HOF–the one that just admitted Heart and Genesis–but rather some more ideal version. The kind where even a band like Fugazi wouldn’t mind being enshrined (as long as tickets to the induction ceremony were no more than five dollars).

You’re probably right, I wasn’t reading along very carefully. I am just philosophically opposed to the idea. It’s just such a personal judgement, trying to qualitatively evaluate is so stupid; and trying to convince anybody else is even stupider.

The answer to a qualitative debate about music isn’t “no, but,” its almost always “yes, and.”

The joy of this playground that Mac has built is that it’s a safe place to introduce topics for lively intelligent discussions.
Or to just say “Ugh, I hate that guy.”
Sometimes the topic isn’t baseball. A few days ago we were talking about jazz. It’s not for me, but I enjoyed hearing and thinking about it.
Or, in September, I made a $100 bet with my stepson that a SEC team will win the NCAA football championship.

Of course, making that bet, he used words like “stupid” and “insane” to describe my willingness to give him the rest of the teams in America. I read this site and feel pretty confident. Thanks for that, folks.

It’s a special blessing to have someplace fun to occupy my time until the magic words are spoken in the spring: Play Ball.

The very concept of a Hall of Fame for art is problematic, certainly. Halls of Fame measure objective success while art is largely measured by subjective success. All the great musicians and writers and painters who died penniless were great regardless of personal finance, but unlikely to be inducted into any “Baroque Hall of Fame,” or “Romanticism Hall of Fame.”

Still, we have an RnRHOF and a lot of our favorite bands are in there. So I think it’s fun to try to hold bands up to objective criteria. The fact that Devo isn’t Hall-worthy doesn’t detract from their greatness: I love them and I think they’re an awesome band. But I think this is an interesting way of looking at the totality of an artist’s career in public. It’s artificial, sure. But this is also sort of a satire on the very criteria the RnRHOF uses. I doubt their voters use objective criteria at all. It’s up to us baseball fans to do that.

There are, in baseball, two Halls of Fame. The first one is in Cooperstown, NY, a town that also has a pretty good craft brewery, Ommegang, and a well-regarded opera company. The second one resides in my head, along with memories of Ommegang and precious few memories of opera. The first Hall makes lots of mistakes and has a laborious process for entry. The second one is unerring and almost instantaneous in induction. No one will be surprised to know that Dale Murphy is in HoF 2, but there may be some eyebrows raised when it revealed that Biff Pocoroba is there as well. I really don’t care.

Hadn’t checked the site or comments in a while. Interesting write up (when you are writing about a band I literally know nothing about, and I read the whole thing, I say ‘nicely done’).

Can’t believe no one commented on Adam R’s one liner on #24 – that got a real LOL/snort out of me Just thought the comment deserved an extra mention (or maybe we just have the same weird sense of humor, at least on this one section of overlap).

Maybe there is really a hangover effect. I’m sure that it can be hard to adjust your game from such an extreme environment — Fenway turns everyone into a right-handed pull hitter, for example, and it can be hard to unlearn that.

But Coors is quite simply the most extreme hitters’ park in the game, and it makes everyone who plays there a vastly better hitter. Again, I’m not saying that Fowler’s bad. I’m just saying that he is league-average at best, in line with his career 100 OPS+. If he does exactly what he did last year again, then that’ll be wonderful, but he got quite lucky with BABIP and HR/FB, so I’m not sure that he’s actually improved his power numbers or batting average skill nearly as much as it appeared on the surface.

It’s easy to say that Coors Field inflates batting statistics but it can be hard to remember just how much. The answer is: about 150 points of OPS.

Here’s something interesting: this Baseball Prospectus article http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=19117 throws out a bunch of potential trade ideas. #5 is “Anthony Gose and ‘a couple mid-tier prospects’ for Jonny Venters and Randall Delgado”, and suggests that Gose would then compete to play LF for the Braves. While reading the article, my immediate reaction was “stupid idea for the Braves”, but after taking a look at Gose, I’ve come around to thinking that Gose would be a great add for the Braves franchise, albeit not at the cost of both Venters and Delgado.

Looking at his stats, Gose is clearly very fast, can take a walk and has some power, but he strikes out a ton. http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=5097&position=OF Gose has averaged roughly a .150 ISO, 10% BB rate and 25% K rate in the minors; as a point of reference, Bourn has been at about .090 ISO, 9% BB rate, 20% K rate for his major league career. Gose could turn out to be very valuable if he can play CF and keep his K rate in the 20-21% range; his 2011 – 2012 minor league seasons indicate he could be a .260/.340/.410 guy. On the other hand, if he strikes out 30% of his ABs, his line looks like his short 2012 MLB stint, where he managed only .220/.300/.320, even with a .340 BABIP.

Gose is quite young – in fact, he’s 6 months younger than Delgado. It looks to me that Gose has a good chance of becoming a productive CF at the MLB level, but he’s probably a year or two away from being able to hit at the top of a lineup. That said, he is absolutely the kind of player that the Braves should be looking to trade for; a young, cost-controlled position player with high-ceiling talent.

It’s a good thing that the Los Angeles area doesn’t have any distractions for Hamilton, such as a large bar scene, hot co-eds, the lure of Hollywood, folks with copious amounts of drugs, or a heavy media presence. Oh, wait.

Ladies and gentlemen, our newly signed UI Ramiro Pena:
Major League career statline: .233/.266/.288
Minor League career statline: .258/.320/.330

So, now we have 2 all-glove backup infielders in Pena and Janish and neither have any speed to speak of. What the hell are you doing, Frank? Well, hopefully he’s only planning to keep one up and store the other in the minors. Regardless, it’s still dumb.

Mark Trumbo is an interesting player for us to look at; he’s actually the same setup as Prado, halfway between 3b and LF, though I imagine we’d play him in left, given his defensive reputation at 3rd and Prado’s legitimately excellent 3b defense.

I’m not much on giving away real talent for Dexter Fowler, but every conversation about “Coors Fields hitters” needs to begin and end with a bracket of “we had this conversation before and then Andres Galarraga turned out to be pretty damned good.”

Damn. Too bad we don’t still need a CF. Somebody is going to get pretty incredible value in Bourjos. I hope it’s not IWOTM. Fantasyland: we get Bourjos and flip him together with Teheran and prospects for Mike Stanton.

It’s probably worth mentioning that Dale Murphy’s son has a web petition calling for Dale’s induction into the Hall of Fame.

Mac wrote extensively on Murphy’s case, and was perhaps his most prominent sabermetric supporter. After sitting on the fence for a while, I came around to Mac’s side. I personally don’t agree with the reasoning in Taylor Murphy’s petition: he wants Dale inducted as a sort of counterbalance to all of the steroid users on the ballot, because Dale was a paragon of sportsmanship and he stood for playing clean. I have no doubt that Dale was every bit the fine teammate, husband, and father that everyone says he is, but I don’t like the idea of trying to make him into a referendum on steroids, where people vote for him instead of Barry Bonds. In my Hall of Fame, I want both Dale and Barry. So my preferred case for Dale doesn’t detract from other players.

That said, please feel free to go and sign the petition. I’m sure that it will mean a lot to the Murphy family. There are already over 3,700 signatures.

@120 – Egad man. Why not just stick a sharp object in your eyeball. Same searing pain. The hell of it is that J.P. Ricciardi is back in baseball. Ok, its the Mets but still… How the hell could anyone get a job in MLB after writing the Wells contract?

I’m sorry, I don’t think that Vinny Castilla hit “reasonably well” outside Coors. The only time in his entire career away from Colorado that he ever posted an OPS+ over 100 was in 2001, with the Astros, in Enron Field. His OPS+ was 101.

My interest was randomly peaked by Carlos Delgado recently. So, I Googled “Carlos Delgado” and read a fantastic article about his retirement. I looked to see who the author was, and it said “Alex Remington.” What a stud.

While DOB and his fans are getting dreamy-eyed at the thought of Emilio Bonifacio, down in Venezuela El Oso Blanco just stepped into the box for his first at bat in more than a week and crushed a solo shot to center. Back to back with Mejia, in fact.

Perhaps this a glass of wine speaking, but I feel okay going into the season with what we have instead of trading one of our top pitching prospects for what appears to be available among OFers. Sure, it would have been great to get Upton or Choo, or Stanton or even Willingham. But I hope Wren doesn’t give up anything valuable just to make a trade at this point. Let’s see how the pieces fit for a few months and save $5-10M for a trade deadline move.

This Navigantes team that Mejia and Gattis are beating up on is pretty good. They could be a fine AAAA club. Their lineup includes Elvis Andrus, Jose Altuve, Juan Rivera, Ramon Hernandez, Ezequiel Carrera, Jesus Flores, Endy Chavez and Carlos Maldonado. Pretty much all of those guys played in the big leagues this year.

If the Angels don’t have to trade Trumbo, why would they? He’s under team control for several more years. Yeah, if they get bowled over, they might, but I wouldn’t be in a big hurry to just dump him. What a luxury to have him off the bench or to be able to play around with him as the DH. Trumbo’s basically screwed.